Flash Delirium
by xfucktheglasses
Summary: Gray and the silent hum after a massacre. —Gruvia.
1. Awake

To TK, Rhea and Sonya.  
Basic gist: there are too many theories about character deaths in this new arc we're heading into, in Fairy Tail. I was forced to shower everyone in my angst.

1: Awake

He comes back with a loud, agonized gasp, eyes snapping open and empty black attempting to wrap itself around him; tight and lung-crushing—demanding he stay put and never leave. Gray coughs and he swears he hears blood splatter. The sound is wet and loud—it resonates against his eardrums, rattling his brain and rolling his eyes and grinding his molars and freezing his veins. He groans and its loud enough to make him want to scream and lash out.

Gray tries to stand up but his limbs are numb and he's nothing but dead weight. Something is atop him; he slowly begins to pick up as he tries to get passed the darkness that surrounds him and look around but… But nothing is _there_.

He's caged in.

Rocks and boulders and pieces of what could only be the stadium where the Grand Magic Games were being held seem to surround him like a makeshift casket. Something inside him snaps, but he's still too groggy to figure out what it is. He thinks its anger and despair—anxiety. It's eating him from the inside out, carnivore feelings eating everything he has to offer and leaving nothing behind but the empty shell trapped underneath ruins.

Gray grunts and attempts to sit up again but the rocks above him aren't enough; breathing begins to be too much and he swears the space he occupies is shrinking with every breath he takes.

"Shit," he whispers and his voice box aches. He drops down, face against the blood-stained ground, and closes his eyes.

Static noise is around him—nothing, not even the wind.

Anxiety and anger jolts him, unfreezing his veins and allowing adrenaline to bring his stupid—_incompetent_—body back to life.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," he hisses to himself, jaw clenched and teeth gritted.

He's sweating with his attempts and his arms shake and his legs are so close to giving out again and every push… Every push is futile. Gray growls and slams his fists onto the ground, hair stuck to his forehead, stringy and damp with sweat and blood. He groans and drops back down to his stomach with a soft grunt.

"Fuckin' Jesus Christ," he breathes out, shifting around so his arms are right in front of him. They hit against the jagged surface of one of the boulders caging him in. He opens one of his palms and fists the other, smacking the bottom of it against his palm. "I-ice Make: Shield…!"

But nothing happens.

Gray's eyes grow wide and he begins to panic, smacking his fist to his palm again and again, muttering commands and receiving nothing in return. His voice grows rougher, stronger and cracked and nothing happens with each attempt. He grows reckless, mind spinning, white spots popping in his vision, sweat coating him like second skin.

He starts punching, blindly—left, right, up, repeat, up, right, left, repeat. He can hear the rocks cracking, small pebbles dropping onto him and stinging like electrocution shocks. He continues to punch, never minding the thought of the broken ruins crushing him down even further. He can rise from that too—he will not be beaten by _rocks_ of all things. Gray refuses to die in such a pathetic way.

No. He's going to get out. He's going… He's—one of the boulders above him cracks and he swears he catches a sliver of light before rubbles began to collapse over him. Gray will not have it, though. He sits up, the pounding of solid rock hitting his head making everything a bit difficult but Gray is stubborn—goddamnit, he is a proud member of Fairy Tail and all the wrecked idiots in that guild are too stubborn to be brought down.

So he fights his way up until one of his arms breaks through. He grunts and finds a way to get the rest of himself out until he's blinking furiously because the light of day is scorching his retinas. He gasps for air, greedily gulps every last bit he can get into his lungs without pulling a muscle. The bottom half of his body is still hiding under the debris, but Gray is too busy trying to add everything up together.

Fit everything like a puzzle and find answers. He cannot remember a single thing—nothing that could lead to this and his inability to use magic. He groans and grabs his head because he feels as if it will blow up if he continues to try and think back. So he pauses his attempts and crawls out of the wreckage.

One of his legs is still badly injured, but Gray lifts himself up to his full height, a sway in his stance and messy dark hair shadowing his face.

Everything around him is in shambles—nothing is recognizable let alone salvageable.

A fire is going on not too far from where he stands, wild and destructive.

"Natsu…?"

He tries to walk towards it.

Gray is not afraid of fire.

"S'that you, shit-head?"

He receives no reply but Gray slowly wanders closer, tripping every other step. No one is around once he's near enough—the heat cocoons itself around him but Gray does not welcome it. It feels foreign and malevolent and nothing like Natsu's flames; the heat is even unbearable and leaves Gray craving the cold sensation that follows him like an old friend.

He can't feel it, now that he thinks about it.

The cold—the chills—the freezing comfort that feels like a nudge from someone he once knew pushing, him towards his own road instead of following one paved and worn from the dozens of trek to the destination it leads to. He's empty and alone—lost.

In more ways than one, he admits, slowly walking back to what had been his burial ground. Gray drops down with a sigh, holding his pounding head in between his hands, eyes closed and mind drawing in ten different kinds of blank. Nothing can make sense to him—the land around him in shambles with no clues… Not even an _enemy_.

How can he possibly know what to do—where to go—who to _look for_?

_God_, how his brain pulses.

Gray can feel blood sticking to his fingertips as he runs his hands through his messy, entangled hair. He winces and hisses, eyes downcast.

What to do…

What to do…

What to—

"_Gray-sama."_

Gray's head snaps up, eyes wide and mouth ajar. "Juvia?"

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	2. Rain

To TK and Rhea because they are my FT and Gruvia partners.  
Thank you so much for the positive feedback, everyone!

2: Rain

He must be hallucinating.

Streams of water is rise from underneath the wreckage, slipping through the cracks and recollecting itself to slowly, but surely, take a form; blue and bubbly and unstable. Gray is frozen in place as he watches the body of water take form starting with an arm reaching out towards him and a painful gurgle escaping from a small ripple from what should be a head.

_"Gray-sama?"_

Is….Is that Juvia? His brain pounds against his skull, echoing in his ears and threatening to shatter his eardrums. He tries to look away; not sure if he is disturbed or fascinated at the sight of the woman—is it really her?—recollecting herself and forming her body; it's taking her a long time. Gray has seen Juvia disperse into water and reform herself a second later, but right now she… She looks to be in _pain_.

Those gurgles must be screams that she cannot unleash. She's crystal clear like the water she rules over, no noticeable features seen; just a body of water shaped into the appearance of a woman.

_"Gr—Gray-sama…!"_

She sounds as if she's drowning. Lost in the waves and trying to scream for help. Gray slowly stands up, tripping over the rocks beneath him. He walks towards her—Juvia, or this version of her, anyway. He walks with a blanket of disbelief in his eyes and dryness in his throat. When he stops right in front of her, he reaches and pokes a bloody finger to her shoulder.

She rippled, like stone-tossing at a river.

"Juvia…?"

She nods. _"Gray-sama."_

Is that all she can say?

Gray licks his chapped lips, running a hand through his hair—pulling the stubborn locks back because he feels as if he's at his wits end; confused and lost and exasperated with everything. "What's wrong? Why can't you turn back to normal?"

"_Gray-sama," _and she moves one of her watery arms, placing her hand to her chest, "_Juvia is… Injured… She needs… Time."_

Time?

Gray feels the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end in his frustration.

"We don't _have_ time," he growls through gritted teeth.

He wishes he could see her face—the hurt and the flash of annoyance. Just so there can be something to concentrate on; the apology that would form in the back of his throat and hang at the tip of his tongue just so he can swallow it back and show her he's sorry in a different way.

But Juvia is all water and he can't see her dark eyes and her pale lips or her fucking blue hair.

He sighs, shaking his head and dropping to the ground.

He feels as if he should just… Sleep… Sleep and—and wake up and find everything alright. But Gray isn't an optimist so he just drops onto the ground, the jagged boulders of different sizes his bed, and sleeps.

.

.

.

The sleep he falls into is disturbing.

If he dreams, he doesn't remember it at all—here, he remembers when Lucy insisted everyone dreams, regardless if they remembered it or not—and when he opens his eyes, it is without trouble and without an ounce of sleep weighing his eyelids down. He sits up with a start, taking a deep breath and looking around his surroundings.

Crocus is still in shambles, the destructible fire from before is dying down and the sky is dark and gray.

It's raining.

Gray lifts his hands up, cupping his palms and watching as the rain accumulates at the center.

The world has ended. It settles in like a crack to his ribs—the world is over and he's miraculously survived. Gray doesn't know exactly how it happens, but he figures everyone went down with a fight; _he_ went down with a fight, the only difference between him and the others is that he managed to get back up.

It's raining, he comments to himself as his means to move away from his thoughts about what he cannot remember.

This settles in second.

It's _raining_.

He drops the small puddles of waters from his hands and turns to his left.

She's sitting there, on top of rubble, curled into herself, hair drenched and sticking to her bare back. She's back—all pale skin, blue hair and hiding behind a curtain of gloom. She's as naked as a jaybird, but she's _there_ and Gray is quick to stand up and make his way towards her, the rain pelting his skin and washing the blood away and making his cuts sting.

"Juvia."

She looks up, forelocks sticking to her forehead and tangling with her cobalt lashes. She smiles at him and it's weighed down with melancholia. "Gray-sama… Juvia is back."

He nods his head, gripping the hem of his battered shirt and taking it off. He hands it to her, the comment silent—it was better than being naked, after all. She stares at it for a second before reaching out to grab it with trembling hands. She slips it on and Gray looks away from her bare chest.

The shirt was torn but it covered what it should.

"How'd you survive—do you know what happened?"

Juvia shakes her head as she pulls her hair out from under the shirt. "Juvia is made out of water; she can come back as much time as needed." She bites her lower lip, her eyes scanning the ruins of Fiore's capital. She shakes her head again. "No memory comes to Juvia about what caused all this."

Gray sighs, hiding his face in his hands and trying to keep his control in check.

"Gray-sama?"

He looks up, dragging his hands down the length of his face before exhaling another deep sigh. "Yeah?"

"We need to… To move…"

He swallows, looking at the wreckage and wondering how many of their friends were hidden under them—dead and broken. A side of him wants to move the ruins; dig and look for each and every single one of them and give them a proper burial. But the saner side soothes him and lets him know Fairy Tail would want him to survive and look for the assholes that did all this.

Gray swallows, again, closing his eyes and nodding. "Yeah."

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.

They walk in silence; the rain falls over them almost mercilessly—every raindrop like acid on their skins.

Gray and Juvia walk without noticing it. The sky has grown darker than before; night clouds them like a blanket and their surroundings are still as destroyed as the mile before. Gray lifts his hand up and pulls his drenched hair back. It sticks to his scalp, only short rebellious strands coming back to shadow his eyes.

He gulps air and tries to get the water off his body. It's futile, what with the way the downpour continues to fall relentlessly. He gives Juvia a passing glance from the corner of his eyes.

She hasn't spoken much, since they left and Gray wonders if he should really worry.

As crazy and weird as Juvia can be, she knows how to act when a situation is drastic. And this…. This is beyond drastic—this is _severe_.

"Juvia." His voice is lost in the storm and he watches her as she slowly lifts her head, a strand of her hair stuck against the slope of her nose. "Are you… Causing this?"

He raises his hands up and looks up at the sky.

"No," she mutters, walking closer towards him. "Not really. Juvia is despaired but this storm is not Juvia."

"Oh."

They walk in silence after that. But it isn't long before Gray gives up. He grabs Juvia's forearm and leads her towards the rubbles of the town. Crocus is _destroyed_ and as much as Gray tries not to, he can't help but wonder who could have such power to create such mass destruction. He grits his teeth and tries to move rocks, throwing them aside and feeling like his muscles were being ripped apart as he flexed to grasp the strength to move them.

Juvia is quick to catch on and begins to help him, their eyes squinted and their bodies drenched to the marrow of their bones. When they make room big enough for the two of them, they squeeze in and huddle, shivering as one, breaths growing solid and remaining visible in front of them long enough to combine before they'd disappear.

"Gray-sama?"

"Yeah?"

She sniffles, looking downwards and hiding behind the strings of her soaked hair. "Juvia is hurting here."

She places a hand at her chest.

Gray watches her and the way her face crumbles and he just _knows_ what she's thinking. He closes his eyes and reaches towards her, tentative, before placing a hand on her shoulder and giving it a squeeze as soon as it shakes with her silent sobs.

He sighs. "Me too."

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	3. Dragons

This story will be over in the next two chapters. Sorry if you thought it was going to be this huge project.  
And yes it might take me another four months to update. Who knows. Thanks for the support, either way.

3: Dragons

Gray wakes up.

He gives a mild jump, his leg slipping and causing a few pebbles to topple down, barely making a noise. He blinks is eyes, nails digging into flesh that is not his. Startled, he looks down, eyes wide and lips parted. Juvia is curled against his chest, facial expression troubled as if having nightmares as she sleeps. Gray watches as her brow furrows and relaxes, lips parting as if she's about to scream in terror.

He swallows, slowly letting go of her arms and turning his dark eyes to watch the crescent shaped indentations he's left on her.

Gray opens his mouth to whisper her name but he swallows it all back down when the earth shakes.

His eyes grow wide, snapping his head to face the outside of the little cave he and Juvia made. The rain lightened up to a drizzle and by the shade of the sky it couldn't be any later than five in the morning. Perhaps the quakes are what woke him up, he muses, tensing and watching the eerie scenery before him.

He stares down at the ground, watching as the quakes make the smaller rocks to shift. The rumbles are slow, yet close together—rumble, pause, rumble, pause, rumble, pause like footsteps. Gray squirms a bit, realizing that the rhythm of the quakes are like footsteps. But that… What person can walk and cause the earth to move…?

Juvia stirs, against him, inhaling air and arching her back as she wakes up.

He watches as it all comes back to her. It's like a downward spiral, the way she begins to fall back to the gloom she had been the previous night. Outside, the drizzle grows a bit heavier.

She gasps, jerking around so she could drink him up with her blue eyes. Gray stares at her and her pale parted lips, the way he can see his reflection in her eyes, drowning in her confusion and her sadness. He lets his hand drop on her shoulder, pulling her so she's resting against him and he doesn't have to see how broken she is.

Once upon a time, Gray met a very broken girl and he doesn't want to see her regress to that after all those happy, too-in-love smiles he's seen brighten her face.

But the earth is still shaking and Gray can feel Juvia stiffens in his hold, placing her too-cold, small hands against his chest and trying to push her head up so she can observe the chaos in front of her. And Gray supposes he can give her that much, no matter how much it'd break her—he can let her be clued in that the world they had once known is gone and in its place is nothing but disaster and emptiness.

He watches her with a blank expression; watches as she sits back up, one of her hands still on his chest, watches her eyes _dance_ as if photographing every little detail, stamping it in her mind and letting it all settle in. _They're all dead_, he tells her in his head, _they're all dead and it's me and you and do you feel the way the earth keeps laughing at us_?

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

"What's that," she whispers, turning towards him, her eyes wide and her brow furrowed. "Gray-sama, what is that?"

Gray clenches his jaw and stares at the moist terrain before him; the drizzle is picking up and he knows that it has to do with Juvia's fear and sadness. He leans forwards, set on investigating the mystery of the quakes. He isn't expecting to find an enormous foot stomping in front of him. Scaly, yellowed claws—thick and as long as he is tall. His eyes grow wide, mouth dropping open as it all makes sense to him now.

Dragons…

He slaps a hand to Juvia's mouth just as he hears her breathing hitch, feels an oncoming screech of shock and disbelief and downright _fear_.

"Shhh," he whispers, pressing her close to him, skin against skin.

She's shaking and so is he and since when have dragons roamed the world, anymore? It's been years and they're all _gone_ how is it even possible that they're back and… And… They're the ones that did this. They're the ones that destroyed Crocus and everything in their way; they're the ones that killed Natsu and Lucy and Erza and Laxus and Lyon and everyone… Everyone is dead and it's all because of the dragons.

Harsh winds begin to blow and it takes all the strength Gray as recovered to not slip out of their little cocoon, not let Juvia slip, not let their cover be blown because if they're seen, they're dead. And they can't—what's the point of surviving anymore, a voice in his head asks—die. Not yet, anyway.

But the wind is powerful. His eyes scrunch up but he still catches as the leg lifts off the ground—flying… The dragon in front of him is _flying_. He grunts, holding Juvia close and curling into himself, waiting the torrents to go out, waiting for the dragon to disappear, waiting for some other things he's not even sure about.

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"Gray-sama, there are _dragons_ among us," she hisses as they jog under the rain.

His shirt is second skin on her, riding up her thigh, feet dirty and cut and bleeding but she doesn't seem to notice or mind. Gray shakes his head to get his hair out of his face, cold yet not because his veins are frozen and his blood is cold; the cold is his old friend—an embrace he's long forgotten, long lost caress but the shivers that run up and down his body are still there.

"I know," he mutters.

She shakes her head and her blue hair blends in with the world around them. "I… I don't understand. Gajeel-kun is… Was a Dragon Slayer. He… He is… Was… He was supposed to be able to defeat dragons!"

And so was Natsu.

And so was Laxus.

And so was Wendy.

Sting and Rogue from Sabertooth.

The dragons had vanished long ago but Dragon Slayers had still walked among them. Dragon Slayers, mages with the abilities to defeat dragons, raised and trained by actual dragons before they disappeared. And yet here they are… And yet here the world is but a wasteland… And yet here Gray and Juvia are an Ice-Make mage and a Water mage, respectively. The only known survivors of what Gray has pieced was an attack—an ambush, an invasion—by the dragons.

I know, he repeats in his head because he doesn't think Juvia is looking for an actual reply. She's talking to herself, voicing out how ridiculous and impossible everything is and yet here they are.

And yet here they _fucking_ are.

Gray feels his blood boil.

"Nothing makes sense," she whispers, closing her eyes and willing the rain to fall harder. "Nothing makes sense!"

Gray doesn't answer.

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.

Tonight, they hide in the trees, up above, hidden on the branches and behind the leaves.

Gray swears he can hear the screeching, the laughter and the conversation between dragons being carried off by the wind, towards them. Juvia is crying—perhaps she doesn't think he can tell, but he can. She's crying, curled up by the trunk, hugging her legs close to her chest and trying to match her sobs to the whistle of the wind.

He doesn't know what to do and he doesn't know if there's anything _to_ do for her because he feels her pain too. It's swallowing and awful and he's lost and confused and so angry because he can't get passed the part about everyone he loves being dead. He doesn't think there's a possibility of getting passed that; just adapting. And Gray knows, from experience, that adapting and getting passed something are two different things.

He sighs, crawling on the thick branch and settles for straddling as he sits right in front of Juvia.

"Don't cry," he says, trying to sound soothing. But he really can't sound soothing with how gruff and low his voice is. He places a tentative hand on her thigh. "C'mon… If we're gonna survive we gotta stop thinking about it."

She shakes her head, shivering. "I… Juvia knows... But… She's still so sad."

"Gray's sad too," he sighs, rubbing soothing circles on her skin. "But they'd want us to live, right?"

Juvia nods her head slowly.

"Okay, then. So we'll sleep tonight and then we'll try to get the hell outta here—find somewhere safe where we can live. You and me."

She stares at him, tears brimming her navy blue eyes, so shiny they look like glass. "G-Gray-sama… And Juvia…?"

Gray nods. "Yeah, we'll find a way to get our magic back and we'll start over. We'll start Fairy Tail all over and…" He takes a deep breath, nodding again and trying to look as hopeful as he didn't feel. Because he can't let her break the way she's breaking.

He reaches a hand towards her in his attempts to move her drenched hair out of her face.

That's when everything happens.


End file.
